COMMON MAN SPEECH FOR EDUCATION Your excellences, Mr president, distunguished friends, class and school mates and the society at large ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour today and for always to listen and not deaf the howl of the poor who are now choking due to the hardship of life. It is a common man speech, crying and buzzing without not reaching far so that can be heard for admonitory. It is a commonman words which are not of anything to the official with clean hands who works little and earns high with a continuos making of noices in a house said to belong to the ordinary citizens. It is a speech valuable for those who have already dedicated their lives in searching for the wisdom of africa and not for those who wish to exploit their fellow brothers and sisters for their own goodness. “What is Africa To me? Blackness Deep, deep fathomless Darkenesss; Africa, Idle giant Basking in the sun Sleeping, snoring, Twitching in deams Dieased with a chronic iilness Choking with black ignorance Chained to the rock Of poverty And yet laughing, Always laughing and dancing. The chains on his legs Jangling Displaying his white teeth In bright pink gum, Loose white teeth, That can not bites, Joking, giggling, dancing” (OKOT PB:1972:125 Do not be astonished by the above poems Mr president, ladies and gentlemen but ask yorself about the role and responsibilities of african people particularly elites in bringing development to the people and what this group of learned men and women is doing whether it is relevant or irrelevant to the development of the people. In fact the purpose of this speech is to communicate the purpose of education in our society in dealing with the common enermies of human beings namely (Poverty, Ignorance,Diseases, Famine and Hunger) by using the knowledge and skills that we have learned in an approprite manner in our societies and not otherwise. It must be understood from the beginning that this is not a political oriented play that is often done by politicians in order to gain mass support but how the materials have been prepared may cut across several displine including politics. It is the right approach due to the fact that our country and Africa is big and still poor to enable physical contacts for everyone of us in order to share ideas on how we can deal with these enermies. Apart form that there is still failures in communications among ourselves due to the fact that some area are not covered with networks and other forms of modern communications facilities that have been used in other places to simplify communcations among the people. It is the kind of approach which is going to be of great advantage to many of us found in rural and urban areas with no dought. However this speech may not be of any advantage to us if we canot be able to make a use of it by evaluating ourselves by looking to the kinds of things that we do by using the knowledge and skills that we have in solving our problems whether are wright or wrong and adopt to changes aiming at developing ourselves and not otherwise. The other intention of this speech is to raise awareness by developing our understanding on how we can go about to solve our own problems by using the knowlegde and skills that we have learned and not to use those skills and knowledge in developing classes among ourselves. Mr president, ladies and gentlemen this appoach may also seem to be savage for those who have acquired more knowledge than other, that they have no space to fill in other irrelevant materials from what they already posses but in contrary it maybe useful for the young boys and girls of this country and africa the mother land in the future so that they can become effective and responsible members who are cooperative and nationalists for their national development and not corrupt and those who abuse power. This may only happen if learners are taught how to value immensely their positions and responsibilities within the society and use their knowledge and skills to improve the well beings of the members of that society and not to become parasites to their people. We have real failed a great deal fight aganst poverty, ignorance, diseases , famine and hunger because of arrogance among ourselves we have became very closer to this enermies now. There are many unanswered cries today, voices of women from rural areas are still not heard clearly so that can be healed. “My husband Has read at Makerere University. He has read deaply and widely, Buti f you ask him a question He says Your are insulting him; He opens up with a querrel He begins to look down upon you Saying You ask questions That are a waste of time! He says my questions are silly questions Typical questions from village Girls Questions of uneducated people, Useless questions from untutored minds My husband says I have a tiny little brain And it is not trained, I canot see things intelligently I can not see things sharply He says Even if he tried To answer my questions I would not understand What he was saying Because the language he speaks Is different from mine So that eve if he Spoke to me in Acoli I would still need an interpreter My husband says Some of the answers Cannot be given in Acoli Which is a primitive language And is not rich enough To express his deep wisdom He says the Acoli language Has very few words It is not like the white mans Language Which is rich and very beautiful A language fitted for discussing Deep thoughts Ocol says He has no time to waste Discussing things with a thing Like me Who has not been to school Hesays A unuversuty man Can only have useful talk With another university man Or woman And that it is funny That he should stoop so low Even to listen To my question And when he says These things to me He does not look me in the face He turns his back And talks casually While doing some other work”(Okot PB:1972:87/8)
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 13:40:47 +0000
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